Analysis of Hayeswater

Matthew Arnold 1822 (Laleham) – 1888 (Liverpool)



A region desolate and wild.
Black, chafing water: and afloat,
And lonely as a truant child
In a waste wood, a single boat:
No mast, no sails are set thereon;
It moves, but never moveth on:
And welters like a human thing
Amid the wild waves weltering.

Behind, a buried vale doth sleep,
Far down the torrent cleaves its way:
In front the dumb rock rises steep,
A fretted wall of blue and grey;
Of shooting cliff and crumbled stone
With many a wild weed overgrown:
All else, black water: and afloat,
One rood from shore, that single boat.


Scheme ABABXXCC DEDEFFBB
Poetic Form
Metre 01010001 11010001 01010101 00110101 11111101 1111011 0110101 010111 01010111 11010111 01011101 01011101 11010101 11001101 11110001 11111101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 528
Words 101
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 208
Words per stanza (avg) 50
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
88

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. more…

All Matthew Arnold poems | Matthew Arnold Books

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